Bashville’s color began to waver, and his voice to need increased control. “It’s in human nature to go to such a thing once,” he said; “but once is enough, at least for me. You’ll excuse my mentioning it, madam; but what with Lord Worthington and the rest of Byron’s backers screaming oaths and abuse at the other man, and the opposite party doing the same to Byron — well, I may not be a gentleman; but I hope I can conduct myself like a man, even when I’m losing money.”
“Then do not go to such an exhibition again, Bashville. I must not dictate to you what your amusements shall be; but I do not think you are likely to benefit yourself by copying Lord Worthington’s tastes.”
“I copy no lord’s tastes,” said Bashville, reddening. “You hid the man that was fighting, Miss Carew. Why do you look down on the man that was only a bystander?”
Lydia’s color rose, too. Her first impulse was to treat this outburst as rebellion against her authority, and crush it. But her sense of justice withheld her.
“Would you have had me betray a fugitive who took refuge in my house, Bashville? YOU did not betray him.”
“No,” said Bashville, his expression subdued to one of rueful pride. “When I am beaten by a better man, I have courage enough to get out of his way and take no mean advantage of him.”
Lydia, not understanding, looked inquiringly at him. He made a gesture as if throwing something from him, and continued recklessly,
“But one way I’m as good as he, and better. A footman is held more respectable than a prizefighter. He’s told you that he’s in love with you; and if it is to be my last word, I’ll tell you that the ribbon round your neck is more to me than your whole body and soul is to him or his like. When he took an unfair advantage of me, and pretended to be a gentleman, I told Mr. Lucian of him, and showed him up for what he was. But when I found him to-day hiding in the pantry at the Lodge, I took no advantage of him, though I knew well that if he’d been no more to you than any other man of his sort, you’d never have hid him. You know best why he gave himself up to the police after your seeing his day’s work. But I will leave him to his luck. He is the best man: let the best man win. I am sorry,” added Bashville, recovering his ordinary suave manner with an effort, “to inconvenience you by a short notice, but I should take it as a particular favor if I might go this evening.”
“You had better,” said Lydia, rising quite calmly, and keeping resolutely away from her the strange emotional result of being astonished, outraged, and loved at one unlooked-for stroke. “It is not advisable that you should stay after what you have just—”
“I knew that when I said it,” interposed Bashville hastily and doggedly.
“In going away you will be taking precisely the course that would be adopted by any gentleman who had spoken to the same effect. I am not offended by your declaration: I recognize your right to make it. If you need my testimony to further your future arrangements, I shall be happy to say that I believe you to be a man of honor.”
Bashville bowed, and said in a low voice, very nervously, that he had no intention of going into service again, but that he should always be proud of her good opinion.
“You are fitted for better things,” she said. “If you embark in any enterprise requiring larger means than you possess, I will be your security. I thank you for your invariable courtesy to me in the discharge of your duties. Goodbye.”
She bowed to him and left the room. Bashville, awestruck, returned her salutation as best he could, and stood motionless after she disappeared; his mind advancing on tiptoe to grasp what had just passed. His chief sensation was one of relief. He no longer dared to fancy himself in love with such a woman. Her sudden consideration for him as a suitor overwhelmed him with a sense of his unfitness for such a part. He saw himself as a very young, very humble, and very ignorant man, whose head had been turned by a pleasant place and a kind mistress. Wakened from his dream, he stole away to pack his trunk, and to consider how best to account to his fellow-servants for his departure.
CHAPTER XIII
Lydia resumed her work next day with shaken nerves and a longing for society. Many enthusiastic young ladies of her acquaintance would have brought her kisses and devotion by the next mail in response to a telegram; and many more practical people would have taken considerable pains to make themselves agreeable to her for the sake of spending the autumn at Wiltstoken Castle. But she knew that they would only cause her to regret her former solitude. She shrank from the people who attached themselves to her strength and riches even when they had not calculated her gain, and were conscious only of admiration and gratitude. Alice, as a companion, had proved a failure. She was too young, and too much occupied with the propriety of her own behavior, to be anything more to Lydia than an occasional tax upon her patience. Lydia, to her own surprise, thought several times of Miss Gisborne, and felt tempted to invite her, but was restrained by mistrust of the impulse to communicate with Cashel’s mother, and reluctance to trace it to its source. Eventually she resolved to conquer her loneliness, and apply herself with increased diligence to the memoir of her father. To restore her nerves, she walked for an hour every day in the neighborhood, and drove out in a pony carriage, in the evening. Bashville’s duties were now fulfilled by the butler and Phoebe, Lydia being determined to admit no more young footmen to her service.
One afternoon, returning from one of her daily walks, she found a stranger on the castle terrace, in conversation with the butler. As it was warm autumn weather, Lydia was surprised to see a woman wearing a black silk mantle trimmed with fur, and heavily decorated with spurious jet beads. However, as the female inhabitants of Wiltstoken always approached Miss Carew in their best raiment, without regard to hours or seasons, she concluded that she was about to be asked for a subscription to a school treat, a temperance festival, or perhaps a testimonial to one of the Wiltstoken curates.
When she came nearer she saw that the stranger was an elderly lady — or possibly not a lady — with crimped hair, and ringlets hanging at each ear in a fashion then long obsolete.
“Here is Miss Carew,” said the butler, shortly, as if the old lady had tried his temper. “You had better talk to her yourself.”
At this she seemed fluttered, and made a solemn courtesy. Lydia, noticing the courtesy and the curls, guessed that her visitor kept a dancing academy. Yet a certain contradictory hardihood in her frame and bearing suggested that perhaps she kept a tavern. However, as her face was, on the whole, an anxious and a good face, and as her attitude towards the lady of the castle was one of embarrassed humility, Lydia acknowledged her salutation kindly, and waited for her to speak.
“I hope you won’t consider it a liberty,” said the stranger, tremulously. “I’m Mrs. Skene.”
Lydia became ominously grave; and Mrs. Skene reddened a little. Then she continued, as if repeating a carefully prepared and rehearsed speech, “It would be esteemed a favor if I might have the honor of a few words in private with your ladyship.”
Lydia looked and felt somewhat stern; but it was not in her nature to rebuff any one without strong provocation. She invited her visitor to enter, and led the way to the circular drawingroom, the strange decorations of which exactly accorded with Mrs. Skene’s ideas of aristocratic splendor. As a professor of deportment and etiquette, the ex-champion’s wife was nervous under the observation of such an expert as Lydia; but she got safely seated without having made a mistake to reproach herself with. For, although entering a room seems a simple matter to many persons, it was to Mrs. Skene an operation governed by the strict laws of the art she professed, and one so elaborate that few of her pupils mastered it satisfactorily with less than a month’s practice. Mrs Skene soon dismissed it from her mind. She was too old to dwell upon such vanities when real anxieties were pressing upon her.
“Oh, miss,” she began, appealingly, “the boy!”
Lydia